...But that's correct? All the science agrees; being sexually attracted to children isn't something a person has control over, any more than a person can choose to be straight.
OTOH, pedophilia is not the same thing as being a child molester; sexually assaulting children is a choice. Minors can't legally consent, nor can they ethically or morally consent, so even if libertarians managed to eliminate age of consent laws, it would still be evil.
You can't control feelings; you can control actions.
EDIT: if you're going to say that we should 'cure' pedophiles by killing them, then I would ask if you would also be okay with 'curing' everyone that's ever had a fleeting thought about perpetrating non-consenual sexual contact of any kind. Because that would be exactly the proposal being made.
Wanting to kill people isn't a crime. Killing people is. Yeah, absolutely, I've got no problems shooting an active shooter if that's what it takes to stop the violence. I've got no problems sending child molesters to jail either.
Is there a difference between a mass murderer and a person that has an AR-15?
Thoughts are not actions. Words are not actions.
Not all--or even most, thank fuck--pedophiles are child molesters. Not all child molesters are pedophiles. Harm is not cause only by being sexually attracted to a child; harm is caused by acting on those feelings in some way, in any way. I've been attracted to a number of women in my life that were not attracted to me; I've sexually assaulted none of them.
See I fully agree with you. That's why I don't care about how google is phrasing things they way they are. End of the day, I want people who have this mental illness (but have self control!) to be able to get the therapy and treatment they need.
Sorry to be a kind of gatekeeper, other people on this comment section choose not to see a difference between having a problem and acting on the problem.
It is. It’s nothing new and I don’t know how to fix it.
People use words like homophobia and transphobic which further stigmatize mental illness.
Mental illness is something I’m passionate about but it don’t pay the bills. If someone break their arm, we treat them fairly. If someone has a mental illness, well we know how that goes.
We need to view mental illness like any other illness.
All the science agrees; being sexually attracted to children isn’t something a person has control over, any more than a person can choose to be straight.
Are you trying to say that you made a choice to be straight? Can you pinpoint the exact time in your life when you said to yourself, yeah, I think that I'd prefer to be sexually attracted to people of the opposite gender? I certainly can't; I knew well before I even hit puberty that I was sexually interested in people of the opposite gender. It was never even a question for me.
In all fairness this is a more modern concept. It wasn’t till dsm v it was defined in this manner. Before that it was more murky with dsm iii. I won’t even talk about the shit show of IV.
Now I agree with the dsm v but people confuse pedophilia with child molestation. They’re not the same thing nor should they be confused.
Pedophilia can be treated and many never touch a child. They know their thoughts are wrong and never act on them.
Someone I am acquainted with (online) in the Pac northwest that uses a substantially similar username across accounts. I don't wish to share any information that might identify them, since I don't know how tightly they try to control information about all of their activities.
It would have been a strange coincidence to run across them on a Lemmy instance, but stranger things have happened.
It’s doubtful. Unless they went to medical school, it’s doubtful it’s the same person.
This is a topic that causes people to lose their mittens. They confuse the two and want to go alpha male in we will kill the pedophiles when the answer is more nuanced.
You described it correctly. It’s part of maturity to understand nuance and many people can’t. They think not wanting to kill pedophiles is the same as advocating for child molestation. That isn’t true.
I’m a strong advocate that help should be available to people to avoid criminal behavior.
Dsm V caused a huge uproar and I get the uproar but it better explains the disorder. With that we can do better treatment.
No, the Wintermute that I know, AFAIK, is not a med school graduate. :)
I agree that it's complicated, and that nuance would be preferred. I'm not sure we can get that as long as the attraction itself--not actions--is treated like a moral issue. I don't think that it's even possible to have a serious discussion about the ramifications of issues of sexual attraction--again, not actions--without it being treated like a moral issue.
Just think! Maybe if we could talk about things like this seriously, without moralizing, we'd have fewer youth pastors that sexually assaulted kids, and fewer kids thinking that it was their fault that the youth pastor sexually assaulted them for five years.
I went to medical school and then did my residency in psychiatry. I worked PT for the local SWAT team, which is why I was involved in law enforcement. They like the entry team to have a medical doctor with them. I don't practice anymore; I went into tech because of the crap pay as a psychiatrist, among other reasons. That is how I met my girlfriend, she did my license when I switched states.
Don't forget youth doesn't mean pedophile. Pedophilia is distinct as it's pre-pubescent and isn't a blanket term for children.
If we treat them like criminals, they won't get help.
Another issue I have is it's hard to get mental health treatment for many people. Cost, Stigma, shortage of providers, etc.
Pedophilia is distinct as it’s pre-pubescent and isn’t a blanket term for children.
Yeah, but this--again--is one of those super culturally-loaded things. If you say something like, "Matt Goetz is an ephebophile, not a pedophile!", people get furious as though you're supporting his criminal sexual behaviour (and, in fairness, the people that are most likely to say shit like that are people that oppose age of consent laws because of muh freedums). People are more comfortable lumping any sexual contact with minors under the blanket term 'pedophilia'.
I 100% agree that non-offending pedophiles (and hebephiles, et al.) should be able to seek psychological and psychiatric help without immediately being treated as though they had already committed a moral or criminal offense. If we want to prevent the from harming children, then we need to make sure that they're as well-equipped as possible to avoid behaviours that put them at risk of committing offenses. But, again, too many people treat it like a moral issue rather than a risk-reduction issue. It's deeply irrational.
Also, I'm not sure why someone keeps downvoting you for factual information.
What's wrong with you? If someone is doing everything they can to address an issue, attraction to children, and they are not molesting children, why are you making them out as a villain?
They are seeking help with a problem. Give them the help they are asking for.